Bird-Life in Labrador. 85 



nient in the atmosphere of a real world of rocks, crags, and 

 water, to be the next moment fading dimly into outline and 

 nothingness, to a dream-world pure, while I was just awaken- 

 ing to the realities of the present. 



COMMON HERRING GULL 



Larus argentatus smithsonianus. COUES. 



THIS is the most abundant of the gulls upon the Labrador 

 coast, and seems to be everywhere common. I have found 

 them living in colonies and literally swarming upon every crag 

 and rocky resting place in Southern Labrador. I shall never 

 forget the year of 1875, when I made my first visit to the coast. 

 From the Bird Rocks we made Mecattina Islands ; from these 

 we skirted along the coast, inside of the smaller islands, to St. 

 Augustine ; everywhere the gulls flew about and around us 

 like puffs of white, fleecy clouds. Every resting place seemed 

 covered with them and, in one locality, we passed through a 

 narrow inlet and ascended a small rigoulette with high cliffs 

 above us and rocks everywhere around us. Here we land- 

 ed many times and pursued the birds or hunted for nests and 

 eggs while the air was filled with the noise of their wings, 

 and the birds themselves as they flew here and there seeking 

 security from their unwonted intruders. The birds jvvere hard 

 to shoot for, although there were so many, they flew so high 

 that our shot would scarce reach them ; yet we secured a few 

 of the many thousands seen. The herring gulls seem to breed 

 in colonies mnch like the auks and puffins, at least we found 

 them so. They are doubtless scattered all along the coast, in 

 colonies of from ten to a thousand. I did not find them on 

 the coast in Winter, and judge that they begin their southward 

 migration about the first week in September or thereabouts. 

 Their nests are built usually on the bare rocks of the low is- 

 lands or cliffs everywhere along the coast. They make quite 

 a nest of bits of moss, dried grasses, and like material, appar- 

 ently scraped together from just around the locality where 



